Published on TheHill.com on March 6, 2008.
The real message of Tuesday’s primaries is not that Hillary won. It’s that she didn’t win by enough.
The race is over.
The results are already clear. Obama will go to the Democratic Convention with a lead of between 100 and 200 elected delegates. The remaining question is: What will the superdelegates do then? But is that really a question? Will the leaders of the Democratic Party be complicit in its destruction? Will they really kindle a civil war by denying the nomination to the man who won the most elected delegates? No way. They well understand that to do so would be to throw away the party’s chances of victory and to stigmatize it among African-Americans and young people for the rest of their lives. The Democratic Party took 20 years to recover from the traumas of 1968 and it is not about to trigger a similar bloodletting this year.
John McCain’s nomination guarantees that the superdelegates wouldn’t dare. A perfectly acceptable alternative for most Democrats, McCain would harvest so large a proportion of Obama’s votes if Hillary steals the nomination that he would probably win. Even putting Obama on the ticket would not allay the anger of his supporters; it would just make him complicit in the robbery.
Will Hillary win Pennsylvania? Who cares? Even if she were to sweep the remaining primaries and caucuses by 10 points, she would move just 60 votes closer to Obama’s total of elected delegates. And she won’t sweep them all. Even if Hillary wins Pennsylvania, the largest prize up for grabs, Obama will probably win North Carolina, which is almost as large. He’s likely to win Mississippi and Wyoming and has a good shot in Oregon and Indiana. The most likely result of these coming contests is that Obama will be roughly where he is now, about 140 elected delegates ahead of Hillary.
Suppose that Hillary will carry those states by enough to offset Obama’s delegate lead. The proportional representation system makes a knockout impossible and so mutes relatively narrow victories as to make them almost inconsequential. Little Vermont, with 600,000 people, gave Obama a net gain of four delegates, half of what Hillary won from the Texas primary, a state with 20 million residents. Even after Hillary won big-state victories in Ohio and Texas, she drew only 20 closer to Obama’s total of elected delegates.
Hillary won’t withdraw. That much is for sure. The tantalizing notion that 800 insiders can offset a season of primaries and caucuses will drive both Clintons to ever-escalating rhetoric. Will their attacks hurt Obama? Likely all they will achieve is to give him needed experience in the cut and thrust of media politics.
Left out of the entire equation is poor John McCain. Unable to get a word in edgewise and unsure of which Democrat to attack, he will have to watch from the sidelines as Hillary and Obama hog the headlines. If the superdelegates deliver the nomination to Hillary in the dead of night without leaving fingerprints at the crime scene, McCain’s nomination will be worth having. If Obama prevails, it won’t be worth the paper on which it is written. The giant killer, Obama will have soared to new heights of popularity and McCain won’t be able to bring him back to Earth in the nine weeks that will remain.
Suggestion for Obama:
The next time Hillary uses the recycled red phone ad, counter with one of your own. When the phone rings in the middle of the night, have a woman’s voice, with a flat Midwestern accent, answer it and say, “Hold on” into the receiver. Then she should shout, “Bill! It’s for you!”
Because with Hillary’s complete lack of any meaningful experience in foreign affairs, and her lack of the “testing” that she boldly claims, she’ll be yelling for Bill.
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Comments
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what about this argument raised in todays Wash. Post:
Pennsylvania’s primary will be followed by contests in West Virginia, Indiana and Kentucky, all of which have similar, lunch-pail demographics. If Clinton enters the summer on a roll, especially in the big states, the superdelegates may no longer feel that backing her would be opposing the will of the voters, an Obama supporter said.
“Superdelegates are politicians. They will not buck the will of the voters,” said a superdelegate supporting Obama. “The danger point comes if the superdelegates don’t see a vote for Clinton as bucking anyone.”
I agree with your math and hope you are right but I have reservations about your conclusion. As the expression goes: “its not over until its over.”
As a preface to my comments: I am not, repeat not, anti-Democrat. I think Obama is worth a try to remake and revitalize our broken government. HRC would be polarizing and we would get a continuation of the past and very harmfull 7 years.
Unfortunately, it seems Democrats, Obama included, are succeptable to the “loser” virus, also sometimes known by the alias “dumb and dumber”. This particular virus strikes Democrats anytime they have power within their grasp. There appears to be no immunity.
How else to explain:
- the Dukakis Howdy Doody Commnader in Chief tank pictures
- Bill’s dalliance in the White House
- Gore’s loss to Bush
- Kerry’s silence in the face of the swift boat attack
- Obama’s blunders on NAFTA, the “red phone ad”, and now “Monstergate” and a not so sure Iraq withdrawal.
- Pelosi’s less than brilliant attack on McCain painting him as responsible for the loss of jobs associated with Boeing’s loss in the airforce contract. Gee Nancy, what part of shining a light on corruption and ripping off billions from the American taxpayer don’t you understand.
- Hillary’s “red phone ad”. Dick’s great suggestion to Obama will fall on deaf ears in his campaign but not McCain’s. How about: HRC picking up the phone, listening and screaming to an aid “Get McCain on the phone …. NOW!”
- Obama’s sheer ignorance of “punch and counterpunch” tactics. Note I said counterpunch, not low blow. Without great counterpunching you lose in a long fight. If anyone on Obama’s team reads this stuff then re-read and re-read Dick’s red phone suggestion above. A counterpunch with humor is a great, even brilliant, highroad tactic.
- HRC’s claim to the crown of Commander in Chief. Lets see how that plays against McCain. Note to Obama, counterpunching a claim without substance should not be difficult. Think about what a nasty Republican would do, tone it down, add some intelligence and a touch of humor and let it fly.
- HRC’s vacuous claim of international experience. Lets see how that plays against McCain. I can see the ads of HRC having Tea and visiting tourist sites.
- HRC’s absurd claim to the delegates in Florida and Michigan. Paraphrasing a prior Democrats foot in mouth: “I agreed to the rules before I didn’t agree to the rules.” or “I agreed to the rules but that was before I needed the votes”… and on and on.
- The whole DNC Florida/Michigan fiasco the begin with. Can these people not think ahead more than half a step? They couldn’t win at x’s and o’s let alone chess. Re-vote folks and get on with it now before you embarass the Party any further.
- Super delegates and the debate over them: see Florida/Michigan above. Load gun, shoot foot.
Seems to me that as Clinton, Obama and the DNC blunder it out, McCain’s amuunition stash grows and grows.
The virus has struck again.
I hope Obama can win big in the days ahead and get the Democratic nomination over with soon. Then we can have a solid, fair fight for the Presidency. Otherwise, it will be McCain against a badly wounded survivor.
I have faith that Obama’s cool-headed intellect will survive - even survive his own naivete’. I’m with him all the way, and if they jack with his elected lead, I shall most probably do just what Dick suggests & vote for McCain.
Howard Dean loves to utter that “everyone knew the rules”. Did the voters know the rules?
At this point we can’t make any assumptions. Dick suggests that if Obama becomes the Democratic nominee it’s all over for McCain. Things happen. Hamas celebrates the killing of 8 Israelis. A bomb is found in Berkeley. Don’t forget that the Giants beat the Patriots- who would’ve bet on that one. So many things can happen. We are still very far away from November. For Hillary more old folks came out for her than had voted in the past. There are a lot more old folks than there are young ones. I’m neither an Obama or Hillary supporter so I’m seeing it as a disinterested party. A year ago it was about Iraq not it’s the economy who knows what it will be about come November.
“I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House,” she told reporters. “Sen. John McCain has a lifetime of experience that he’d bring to the White House. And Sen. Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.” Hillary Clinton March 2008.
Its time for the Democratic Party to take HRC out behind the woodshed. It is this kind of soundbite that will bring them down in November regardless of which candidate they choose. McCain’s folks couldn’t write a better line themselves.
Perhaps someone has more background but it seems to me Bill Clinton was not exactly an International household name when he took office. So much for prior foreign policy experience. If I recall he also had no prior military experience and had been governor of a state of about 2.5 million people. Not exactly a fat resume.